Liberal candidate, Sean Fraser, says access to healthcare — or the lack thereof — is on people’s minds in Central Nova.
While healthcare falls under provincial jurisdiction, Fraser says the federal government has an important role to play.
“For decades, the strategy that different federal governments have taken toward healthcare policy has really been to transfer a large sum of money to the provincial government and then washing our hands and walking away. I don’t think that’s appropriate.”
Fraser has represented the riding of Central Nova since 2015.
Money given to the provincial government for healthcare often gets put toward other expenses, Fraser says.
If elected, the party would implement dedicated transfers under healthcare, for things like rural doctor recruitment and mental health services, he says.
“In my mind, this is a far superior approach to what the other parties have on offer, because we’re more than matching the amount of money they’re willing to spend in the provinces,” Fraser says. “But we’re saying, you actually have to tackle the problems that people are raising with us in our communities. And I think it’s going to position us very well to cooperate with the new provincial government.”
Fraser notes, the party tried something similar in 2017, targeting mental health and long-term care because of the “systemic savings” associated with them.
“People who have mental health concerns that are addressed, are less likely to run into trouble with law enforcement… less likely to show up at the emergency room and are less likely to be unemployed or underemployed,”
Under the initiative, the federal government would have a say over whether or not a program or service implemented by the the provincial government qualifies for funding set aside for that issue.
“There are more checks and balances to make sure that we don’t simply hand the money over under the guise of health care funding and have the province put it to some other expense altogether, which has been happening across Canada for decades,” says Fraser “And frankly, this is an opportunity to correct that pattern.”
The party has also committed to expanding access to long-term care by increasing pay for long-term care workers to make it “a more appealing career.”
